Himawari Kunogi
Himawari Kunogi (九軒ひまわり, Himawari Kunogi) is a fictional character in the CLAMP manga and anime, xxxHolic. Her given name Himawari literally means "Sunflower" in Japanese. She is voiced in the anime series by Shizuka Itō. Character Outline Himawari is the crush of Watanuki Kimihiro. She is often cheering for him, if not commenting them on their "comedy acts" together. She does share and give food to Shizuka Dōmeki and Watanuki, yet they are never handmade by herself, which has become a running gag in the series - because Watanuki always thinks that everytime Himawari gives food, whether to him or Domeki, he thinks that she made them. Himawari's birthday is November 27, making her a Sagittarius. She likes sweets, romantic novels, astrology, and ghost stories, and is the only child in her family. Despite the fact that Watanuki is very open in showing his feelings and admiration for her, she seems very oblivious to the fact that he likes her. She has never shown any favoritism between the two, but Watanuki always thinks that Doumeki is more favored. She is also the only human besides Watanuki, Doumeki and Yuuko that Mokona interacts with regularly. Appearance and Personality Himawari is defined as a very beautiful high school student who is always smiling. She wears her uniform most of the time she appears and rarely is seen with another dress. She has long curly hair which ends under her waist tied in two pigtails since she was a child but later she let goes her hair to cover her scars from her back. Also she has a shapely body which can be noticed in the last few volumes since almost three years pass before Vol. 16 and Himawari is still a teenager. She always smiles and keeps a positive attitude to the point that when she watches Watanuki and Doumeki fighting, she thinks they are playing together. Later on the series, it´s revealed that she always keeps her smile even when she is saying something really disturbing to hide the fact that everyone who becomes her company or aquaintance ends in disaster. She always show an innocent mind but she is more mature than Watanuki and understand his feelings about her since they met and when Doumeki or Watanuki says something complicated, she clarifies it. Role In the beginning of the manga when Himawari was first introduced Yuuko had already said that Himawari was "not Watanuki's goddess of good luck" and this has been suggested strongly throughout subsequent storylines. During the case of the Lady with Bad Habits, Watanuki met up with Himawari just before the girl was killed in a car accident (this scene was altered in the anime to exclude Himawari's presence and to let the girl survive). After, in the Monkey's Paw case, the university student-teacher at some point drops the item in the school hallway. Being nearby, Himawari offers to help pick it up. At the moment she touches the item, the seal of the monkey's paw opens resulting in the student-teacher's high curiosity only to lead to her tragic fate. Even more alluding to Himawari's role against luck, the student-teacher often ironically boasted about her case of lucky streaks before her death. In the 100 Ghost Stories chapter, Yuuko said that "all the players" were present; being Watanuki, Doumeki, herself, the dead man in the other room and Himawari. Each had a role to play, as Yuko explained at the end of the ceremony. While she mentions that Watanuki and Doumeki were necessary to draw out and then exorcise the spirit while Yuuko herself was required to explain what they needed to do, she fails to reveal Himawari's role because Doumeki has returned with sake, Yuko's favourite drink. Yuuko did not further comment what role Himawari was to play in that group. Himawari's presence seems to always foreshadow bad luck, such was when Watanuki has a seemingly prophetic dream on the day he gave his eye to the spider, in which he saw Himawari through half of his vision. The Ame-Warashi is cautious of her presence (Although it may just be because Himawari's name means 'Sunflower' while Ame-Warashi is a rain sprite). Speculations may also add that Doumeki himself may know/feel something strange about Himawari since he has always accompanied Watanuki whenever the two should be alone. By chapter 116 of the manga Watanuki was slowly sensing the difference in Himawari. In chapter 118, after Watanuki nearly died after falling from the 2nd story of their school, Himawari for the first time was seen inside Yuuko's shop to pay the price to stop Watanuki from death. It is here revealed that she is aware to the fact she is bad luck not only to Watanuki, but to everyone around her and has since been waiting for him to point it out. After this incident, she tried to say goodbye for the last time to Watanuki; however, Watanuki refused to let her go and slightly confesses to her that he likes being with her and that her presence makes him happy. Himawari reluctantly agreed to continue being friends with him and is seen crying out of happiness because it was the first time anyone told her that they were happy to be with her. It was at this moment where it is shown the price she paid to prevent Watanuki from dying is by forever bearing all of his scars from the fall. Subsequently, Himawari lets her hair down (as opposed to tying two long ponytails), likely to hide the scars from Watanuki lest he gets upset. Recently Watanuki gave Himawari a magical bird that according to Yuuko, is immune to her bad luck (it is revealed that her "power" also does not affect Doumeki because is similar to Tanpopo). Himawari asked him to give a name to it and Watanuki chose to name it "Tanpopo" (the Japanese name for dandelion) because of its yellow color, also dandelions and sunflowers are both yellow flowers. It is revealed in Chapter 209/Volume 18 of the manga that Himawari is married with a businessman who knows about Watanuki and accept their friendship. Her Relationship with Watanuki, Doumeki and Yuko : Watanuki - Watanuki is Himawari´s classmate and a close friend of her. In the beginning of the manga, Himawari hinted some interest on Watanuki like asking him to go out with her and lunch together. Her interaction with Watanuki and Doumeki is the same, whenever she has the chance for being alone with Watanuki they are interrupt by Doumeki and when she talks to Doumeki, they are interrupt by Watanuki. After putting Watanuki in some misfortune situations, she starts to avoid been alone with him to protect him from her bad luck while secretly hoping one day he would notice it and leave her but after Watanuki confess her that he is truly happy to meet her, she decide to continue being her friend. Himawari cares very much for Watanuki as it can be seen when she gets worry about him and scares when he put his own life in danger and make him promise to her that he won´t push himself too hard. Some volumes after the accident, Watanuki becomes smart enough to realize when Himawari is trying to avoid him and he doesn´t give her the chance to run away from him. Now that she doesn´t have the chance to escape, she decide to accept his invitations to spend more time together. : In xxxHolic Rou, Himawari and Watanuki grow apart because Himawari misfortune is bad for the shop and for her own sake so she promises that she will only visit the shop on his birthday. Himawari confess her feelings to Watanuki and they start a long-distance relationship and talk via telephone. 10 years later, Himawari gets married to somebody else who knows about Watanuki and accept their relationship but they are not able to meet each other because her husband can´t enter to the shop and Watanuki can´t leave. : Doumeki - Much to Watanuki's jealousy and annoyance, Doumeki hangs around her and Watanuki at every chance when they could be alone. Nonetheless, Himawari treats them equally as friends and often teases or compliments on how the two get along but sometimes when she speaks or thinks about Doumeki, she shows a deeply admiration hinting that she may have a crush on him. Doumeki is one of the few that can actually sense the difference in Himawari, he is also aware of Watanuki's feelings for her. He seems to keep a close eye on Watanuki and Himawari when they are together since Watanuki often gets affected by her bad luck. He is also helping her to be more open about hanging out with them rather than hiding and running away from her friends. At the ending, their relationship hasn't change at all even when they started to hang out along and visit each other since Watanuki wasn't able to leave the shop. :Yuuko and Mokona - Himawari is a person that Yuuko is fascinated with, much to the annoyance of Watanuki; because Yuuko always teases him that she is not his "Goddess of Luck". She was quick to notice bad luck around Himawari, but treated her with good cheer and even invited her on small picnics and outings she sets up for the trio. Mokona, being cute as she is, can always be seen playing with Himawari when they meet. The two of them do not seem to be affected by Himawari's bad luck. : Bad Luck As Yuko has previously stated, Himawari is a normal human. She possesses no special powers or unusual abilities. In chapter 118, Himawari explains to Watanuki that he is not the only one affected by the bad luck she seems to bring. Since childhood, no matter where Himawari goes, unfortunate things seem to happen. By simply picking up a ball near her home, the house next door became the target of arson. People she was connected to were hurt, including all her friends, a girl in the neighbourhood who ended up committing suicide, and her class teacher was stabbed by his wife when he was caught in an affair. Concerned that Himawari may be possessed or using occult magic, her grandmother took her to a priest who found nothing evil attached to her. While this was the priest's conclusion, he regarded Himawari sadly and informed her grandmother that the only people immune to Himawari's tendency to bring bad luck were her parents by virtue of the fact they brought her into this world. Not long afterwards, Himawari's grandmother died; though Himawari realizes her grandmother was ill and also elderly, she believes that she contributed to her grandmother's death. At the beginning of the series, her bad luck affected Watanuki indirectly, she makes Watanuki watch people get killed or found corpses. Later when she touch him a dark miasma cover Watanuki and hurt him when he can have an accident. It´s also metioned that her bad luck is away when Doumeki is close to her because his pure aura. Himawari is more affected by her bad luck like everyone else, she watch people get hurt and even the ones who stay with here can´t see her anymore like when Watanuki became the shop owner, she can´t see him anymore because her bad luck doesn´t let her enter to the shop without being hurt. Name Origins * The character "九" (ku) of Himawari's family name is the same as the kanji for the number 9, which the Japanese consider unlucky because it sounds similar to the word for pain ("kutsū") and coincides with her role of bringing bad luck and pain to Watanuki. * Himawari's name means "sunflower" which is one of the city flowers of Kitakyushu, a city in Japan. The Kokura region within the city is known as "Lucky Kokura" as it was the primary target of America's "Fat Man" nuclear bomb at the end of World War II. However, due to the city having complete cloud cover on the day of the bombing, America was forced to bomb its second option, Nagasaki, instead. As hard as it may be to tell if this is symbolic, it should be noted that - like the city - the character isn't affected by bad luck, but those around her are. * The other city flower of Kitakyushu, Japan is the Tsutsuji (or Azalea in english). It is associated by astrologist as the flower sign for Sagittarius. Classic Tsutsuji bloom in the Spring and we know that Watanuki was born on April 1st. Classic Tsutsuji typically have 5 petals, while the more rare can have up 7 or 8 petals, depending on the breed. Hybrids can bloom in both the Spring and Late Summer. The Hybrid Tsutsuji was used as a plot device in chapter 142. Similarity with Princess Tsubasa Himawari and Sakura (Tsubasa) don't know each other but these characters are very similar as well as Watanuki and Syaoran. It's a mistery but it's possible that Himawari and Sakura are somehow a different existence from the world they both live in. While Himawari is a resident of Tokyo Country and Watanuki's best friend, Sakura is a resident of Clow country and Syaoran's childhood friend. They have both flower names but Sakura is still a fake name. They have a similar but different behavior, this could be because of the way they grew up. Sakura doesn't have any curse like Himawari, instead she has a blessing of good luck and everyone around her treated so well that Sakura made her best to return those feelings. She also has a brother who likes picking on her which could explain why she actually gets mad if she is provoked. Himawari doesn't have any brothers but was treated well like Sakura, regrettably the people who were kind to her ended up suffering of tragedy because of her curse. This is why Himawari distanced herself and doesn't get mad because she feels like if she isn't allowed to, instead she forced herself to smile all the time to make everyone think that she is happy. Apart from that, they have these similarities: *Before Syaoran and Sakura where locked in a space separated for a glass, they could touch each other. This might have something to do with the fact that Watanuki and Himawari have touched each other before the window accident and after it, having physical contact was too dangerous. *The feeling that Syaoran has for Sakura could be the same as Watanuki's for Himawari. The difference is on the way the express them. Syaoran is a little more cold and calm but he can't hide his blushing whenever Sakura smiles to him while Watanuki's crazy behavior make his feelings look like a childish crush. Despite this, he actually cares for Himawari a lot and would do anything he could to make her happy while staying away from her to prevent her from crying for seeing him hurt. *In the ending of both series, Himawari and Sakura confess their feelings to Watanuki and Syaoran but because of the decisions they made in order to escape from Fei Wong curse, Himawari can only see Watanuki on his birthday while Sakura can only see Syaoran when he arrives on Clow country at random. Trivia * She has a split personality. Since she was little, she would pretend to have a kind and sweet behavior but she also can be calm and cold. It's unknown which is her true self. When she confessed her bad luck to Watanuki and when she talks to Doumeki alone, she is serious and even gets mad. When she is with Watanuki or a friend she has a happy and friendly personality. * It's been hinted that she may have met Haruka Doumeki. In episode 2 of xxxHOLiC Kei, Doumeki mentions that his grandfather was an exorcist and he died when Doumeki was in elementary school, Himawari suddenly has a flashback of her grandmother. In episode 12, Himawari said that her grandmother took her to an exorcist who told her about her bad luck when she was in elementary school so it's possible that the exorcist was Haruka Doumeki. * She is not the guilty about the window´s accident. It´s later revealed by Yuko that Watanuki unconsciously tried to erase his own existence when he felt that Syaoran was going to die making the accident a suicide attempt. * She's good at playing the piano. In the series, it's mentioned that she takes piano lessons and in Horitsuba Gakuen CD Drama it can be heard how she plays piano at a pro-level. * She has the lowest height of the protagonists. * Many character have feelings for Watanuki but she is the only who has confessed her love to him. * She let her hair down instead her two pigtails to cover her scars but in Horitsuba Gakuen she still wears these two hair styles. * The people who are not affected by Himawari's bad luck: her parents, Doumeki, Yuuko, and possible Mokona and her husband. * Although Watanuki and Doumeki are her best friends, she never calls them by their names. * Along with Doumeki she is one of the best students of Tsuji private academy making her part of the Student council. * Watanuki mentioned once that he has lot of rivals for Himawari's love hinting that Himawari is very popular amoung men. * She has a habit of touching her chin with the index finger every time she thinks of something. References This article was transcluded from the CCS Wiki. Please re-write it and help our Holic Wiki! Category:Characters Category:xxxHolic Characters Category:XxxHolic Protagonist Category:Female Characters Category:Content Category:Humans Category:Deceased